Apple Unveils World's Fastest Personal Computer
Apple's New High-Performance Power Macintosh Systems Available Immediately
MARKHAM, Ontario -- August 5, 1997 -- In conjunction with the annual MACWORLD Expo in Boston, Apple Canada Inc. unveiled the fastest personal computer available today. The company highlighted the 350-MHz Apple® Power Macintosh® 9600/350, which is nearly twice as fast as Apple's highest-performance offering of one year ago, and similarly faster than the fastest Pentium II system available today.
"The Power Macintosh 9600/350 is my dream machine," said Harry Marks, noted designer of content for broadcast media. "This computer is so fast that it dramatically changes the entire user experience compared to my year-old high-performance Power Mac."
The Apple Power Macintosh 9600/350 is part of a new line of powerful desktop computers from Apple that are used by professionals in fields such as publishing, multimedia/Internet authoring, science and engineering. The new line includes the Power Macintosh 9600/350, 9600/300 and 8600/300. All of these computers include Apple's new Mac® OS 8 operating software, and feature a fast next-generation PowerPC(tm) 604e processor--running at 350 MHz or 300 MHz --from IBM and Motorola, which greatly contributes to the system's performance.
"There has never been a better time to buy a high-performance Power Macintosh, the leading personal computer in publishing and education," said Stan Ossias, Product Development Manager, Apple Canada Inc. "The new Power Macintosh 9600 and 8600 products deliver dramatic performance increases, incredible ease of use with Mac OS 8 and competitive prices."
The new Power Macintosh 9600 and 8600 computers feature several design improvements that contribute to the outstanding system performance. Most notable is the new Apple Inline Cache, which resides on the processor card and creates a wider and faster path between the processor and the 1MB L2 cache, dramatically increasing performance. In addition, the Apple Inline Cache doubles the rate (to 100 MHz) at which the cache is accessed.
In addition to the performance improvements brought on by the new PowerPC processor, the new Apple Inline Cache, and Mac OS 8, all the new Power Macintosh 9600 and 8600 computers feature faster 24x-speed CD-ROM drives. The Power Macintosh 9600/350 and 9600/300 have more fast-interleaved memory (64 MB of DRAM expandable to 768 MB), an optional built-in Iomega Zip drive for more efficient storage of large files, as well as the IXMICRO Twin Turbo 128M8 graphics card, which is the one of the highest performing graphics accelerator cards available for Macintosh computers. Also new with the 8600/300 is a larger hard drive (4 GB). The 8600/300, like preceding 8600 models, has built-in near-broadcast-quality video input/output, an optional built-in Iomega Zip drive, and fast-interleaved memory (32 MB of DRAM expandable to 512 MB).
All of the new Power Macintosh 9600 and 8600 systems continue to feature Apple's innovative tower design, which has been lauded by customers since Apple introduced it in February of this year. The tower design makes it very easy for users to open the system to add new components such as memory cards or storage devices.
Expansion and Versatility
The new Power Macintosh 9600 and 8600 computers continue to offer the same high level
of versatility and expandability as the previous Power Macintosh 9600 and 8600 systems.
The Power Macintosh 9600/350 and 9600/300 have six 12-inch PCI 2.0 slots, five of which
are empty in the standard configuration. The Power Macintosh 8600/300 has three 12-inch
PCI 2.0 slots, all of which are empty . All of the new models have a 5.25-inch SCSI
expansion bay that is pre-cabled with power and signal for easy addition of a storage
device. The new models also have room for two 3.5-inch drives on the chassis floor.
The new models support fast SCSI (10 MB/sec) for internal devices and standard SCSI
(5 MB/sec) for external devices. All of these computers also feature Geoport-capable serial ports.
Pricing and Availability
The Power Macintosh 9600/350, 9600/300 and 8600/300 are available immediately worldwide.
Estimated retail pricing in Canada is as follows:
| Power Macintosh 9600/350/64MB/4G/24x/Zip/8MB IXMICRO | $7699 |
| Power Macintosh 9600/300/64MB/4G/24x/Zip/8MB IXMICRO | $6599 |
| Power Macintosh 8600/300/32MB/4G/Zip/AV | $5349 |
Apple Computer, Inc., a recognized innovator in the information industry and leader in multimedia technologies, creates powerful solutions based on easy-to-use personal computers, servers, peripherals, software, personal digital assistants and Internet content. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Apple develops, manufactures, licenses and markets solutions, products, technologies and services for business, education, consumer, entertainment, scientific and engineering and government customers in more than 140 countries.
Apple Canada Inc. is headquartered in Markham, Ontario and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple Computer, Inc. Apple products are available at more than 300 Authorized Apple Canada Dealer locations across Canada.
Apple Canada's home page on the World Wide Web: http://www.apple.com/ca/.
Customer Information Contact: If you are considering the purchase of an Apple product and would like to have product information faxed to you, please call 1 (800) 263-3394 in Canada. If you do not have a fax machine or would like to locate an Authorized Apple Canada Dealer near you, please call 1 (800) 665-2775 extn. 450.
Apple, the Apple logo, and Macintosh, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of the individual companies and are respectfully acknowledged.
